The Politics of Perception: Do Power and Ideology Affect Signal Perception?

초록

Recent studies on signaling perception suggest that costly signals are perceived as less credible than defensive realists claim. Is this the case? If so, why are costly signals less effective for reassurance? To address the question, this paper leverages the experimental dataset from Kim’s study (2022), one of the most recent and somewhat pessimistic studies on the effects of reassurance signals. Consistent with offensive realists’ claims such as Mearsheimer and Rosato, this study explores the possibility that uncertainty about state intentions makes costly reassurance less effective than expected. Then it examines two potential candidates that might reduce the uncertainty—signaler’s relative power and observers’ political ideology to assess whether these factors play a mediating role in the perception of costly reassurance signals. This study finds that, first, costly signals have more limited reassuring effects than defensive realists expected, possibly due to uncertainty about intentions. Furthermore, contrary to expectations, this study finds no evidence that observers assess costly signals differently based on the signalers’ power or their own political ideology. These results have implications not only for the costly signaling literature, but also for the ongoing debate between those who argue that signaling can induce cooperation in international relations, and those who believe that pervasive uncertainty will prevent this from occurring.

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